top of page
Creator
Ticketransparency
UM OARS
Landscape
UI/UX Researecher and Designer
UM OARS(Online Access Request System)
A platform for video creators to analysis video back-end data, manage sponsor's tasks and connect to sponsors.
Duration
Teammates
Sep. 2022 - Dec. 2022
Yian G. Qianzi L. Yijun Y. Mingxi W.
My Role
Tools
Project Manager/UX Reseacher
Figma Canva Miro Indesign
Overview
About Client
Stamp School of Art & Design
Our client is the Stamp School of Art & Design from the University of Michigan. It is a worldwide recognized department in interdisciplinary art and design education to cultivate the next generation of globally competitive creative professionals who can participate and collaborate responsibly.
Client Problem Summary
Lacking centralized documentation for requesting roles on OARS (Online Access Request System).
As the users of OARS, the Stamps school’s staff has identified that there are no centralized documents to clarify the relationship between the roles, work contents, and admission courses; hence, hundreds of employees can’t find the work contents and courses by typing their roles in the search bar. Administrator/Unit liaisons are mainly in charge of assigning and approving. ITS staff is mainly in charge of maintaining the OARS system and supporting users. Other faculties and staff are the system users, and they request data access through the OARS system.
Current User Flow
Our clients from Stamp School need to assign roles to give specific permission to students and employees through OARS, such as course override permission, new employee courses permission, etc.
Research
Research Methods
Qualitative research
-
Semi-structured interviews
-
User needs assessment
-
Contextual inquiry
Affinity Walls
-
Affinity diagram
-
Qualitative data analysis
-
Thematic analysis
Developing Solutions
-
Contextual design
Contextual User Interviews
We employed a semi-structured interview approach to gather valuable insights into the user's context during the Contextual Interviews. These one-on-one interviews were held in the participants' work environment and centered on observing their ongoing work processes. This method is critical in collecting data to inform design improvements.
Interview Protocol
Interview Process
Over a month, we interviewed eight stakeholders, including four administrators, three ITS technicians, and one new employee. The interviews were conducted in a question-answer format and walkthrough scenarios.
Data Analysis
After conducting interviews, we used Miro to organize our qualitative data into an affinity map. This affinity map helped us to turn raw data into a tool for understanding, problem-solving, and strategizing.
Affinity Notes
We spent 6 hours organizing the interview notes. The interviews were organized into over 400 coded affinity notes, and each interview participant was tagged with a specific code.
Affinity Map
Our team conducted the further qualitative analysis using the affinity diagram method to identify key thoughts from collected data. We grouped interviewee insights into more than 400 sticky notes based on connections and extracted key themes to label each grouping. This process was repeated to form overarching themes, resulting in key findings representing the core concerns of our client.
Findings
Key Finding 1
ITS staff is unaware of user complaints due to a lack of understanding of communication channels and the context of systems.
Key Finding 2
ITS staff is unaware of userRequesting and approving administrator roles has many processes, and users have ideas for solutions to the problems they encounter, but some problems are vague and need integration. complaints due to a lack of understanding of communication channels and the context of systems.
Key Finding 3
Many workflow elements are not standardized and should be standardized to reach a consensus among various user groups.
Solution
Based on the above findings, we have summarized and brainstormed the following three areas to provide our clients with system improvement suggestions.
Searchability and Role Description
Our assessment of the current solution revealed opportunities for improvement in the user's search experience for role descriptions. In particular, we identified the following areas for enhancement:
-
Broad and extensive search results without adequate filtering options.
-
The current search algorithm only allows for "exact match" searches, limiting the chances of finding the desired result.
-
The use of color could be optimized to emphasize critical information more effectively.
-
The button or interaction for opening the role description box is not prominently displayed.
-
Inconsistent language usage in role descriptions.
Communication Channel
In addition to improving the searchability of role descriptions, we also addressed a bottleneck in the request process that was causing delays for both users and the ITS department. Our recommendations to improve communication efficiency include:
-
Regular system update emails to inform users of new functions or UI changes, maximizing their work efficiency.
-
Conducting usability tests to foster better communication and collaboration between developers and users.
-
The creation of a new user handout that provides an introduction to the system, general use cases, and connections to specific resources to aid the onboarding process.
Other Usability Problems
As a team of UX-focused designers and researchers, we also presented several UX and design recommendations to the client, including:
-
Adding a progress bar to the user's request role interface, providing real-time updates on the status of their request.
-
Implementing a summary box in the interface to make it easier for users to locate the information they have already submitted.
Final report
Impact
Paula Hathaway
Manager of Graduate Education
"THANK YOU for your work on the OARS process. Your report covered all of the issues that we discussed and your recommendations are very helpful. ITS recently sent out a survey about OARS use and I think it may be because of the work you did on this report, the interviews you conducted, etc. "
Veronica Falandino
"Thank you so much for engaging in such a thoughtful way throughout this process. I value the contributions your work will have to the operations of the university, and I'm sure my colleagues do as well."
Assistant Dean
Creator
Ticketransparency
UM OARS
Landscape
bottom of page